Stephen Colbert took a flamethrower to an absurd conspiracy theory that President Joe Biden was executed in 2020 and replaced by a robotic clone.
On The Late Show on Monday, Colbert took aim at the president’s Truth Social repost, originally shared by an anonymous user, which declared that “clones, doubles” and “robotic engineered soulless mindless entities” have been masquerading as Biden ever since his supposed slaying five years ago.
“Obviously, this is absolutely crazy,” Colbert said with mock gravity, starting off his spectacularly absurd rebuke. “You can’t be a robot and a clone. OK? It’s complete madness. Unless…”
Colbert then gleefully dragged viewers down a satirical “rabbit hole.”
“Straight to NORAD’s nuclear strike-proof bunker under Cheyenne Mountain, where a crack team of government engineers and geneticists supposedly cooked up something called ‘Project Build Back Better.’ Their creation? The Joe-bot—a synthetic president remotely operated from the only place that could make this story dumber: Hunter Biden’s laptop," he said.
“It was a perfect plan with only one flaw: the Joe-bot couldn’t recognize George Clooney,” he then quipped.
This satirizes a real incident from June 2024, when then-President Biden reportedly failed to recognize Clooney at a high-profile Democratic fundraiser.
According to the book Original Sin by Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson, Biden’s lapse was so pronounced that an aide had to jolt him with, “You know George,” to which Biden responded, “Oh, yeah! Hi, George!”
This moment, reportedly witnessed by attendees including Barack Obama, raised serious concerns about Biden’s cognitive health and contributed to mounting pressure for him to withdraw from the 2024 presidential race.
Colbert then read aloud the actual post that Trump saw fit to blast out to his seven million followers: “There is no #JoeBiden — executed in 2020. #Biden clones, doubles and robotic engineered soulless mindless entities are what you see.”
“Right,” Colbert deadpanned. “In 2020, a secret cabal took out an old, slow Joe Biden and replaced him with… an older, slower Joe Biden. Oh yes. Totally checks out.”
He didn’t stop there. With a homemade instruction manual, freshly printed on his “work printer” and titled Project Build Back Better, Colbert broke down the conspiracy’s “evidence.”
This included a supposed shift in Biden’s signature—from “Joe Biden” to “J.R. Biden.” The middle initial, of course, stands for Robinette, but Colbert insisted the truth lies deeper.
“This story is all about doubles. So the double E and the double T cancel each other out. Now we’re left with Robin. Rob-in. What’s the opposite of in? Out. Rob-out. Very curious.”
“And who are the Democrats trying to fool? You!” Colbert shouted. “Robot Joe Biden!” he concluded, to rapturous applause.
